


By Your Side [Wherever We May Go]

by PompousPickle



Category: THE iDOLM@STER, The iDOLM@STER Sidem
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff with a side of feelings, M/M, SideM Writing Challenge 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 17:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15054182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompousPickle/pseuds/PompousPickle
Summary: “What about every time I finish a page, you give me a kiss?”Hayato helps Haruna study.





	By Your Side [Wherever We May Go]

**Author's Note:**

> My second piece for the SideM Writing Challenge, written on the prompt "Happy little mistake". Thanks once again to my precious Rokarca for the beta-read!

If it weren’t for Haruna’s mother, he might have never been able to make it to class. He swore he set three alarms before coming home from his night job. But when his mother jostled him out of bed in a panic, he realized that he had been gravely mistaken. He still barely got more than 3 hours of sleep; so it was hardly even worth the extra rest. He was lucky he had only dozed off in class two or three times.

Still, it wasn’t all bad.

“Haruna! Mom wants to know if you wanted any snacks. We don’t have a whol-ah!  Are you sleeping?” Hayato rushed over and immediately started shaking him as the other boy relaxed on the bed. “That’s no good! We’re not going to get anything done if you’re asleep.”

Haruna chuckled and grabbed for Hayato’s arm, dragging him down with him. He wasn’t planning on sleeping. The bed was just the most comfortable place to relax in the small room. But now that Hayato mentioned it, a nap didn’t sound so bad. Between work, oversleeping, school and vocal lessons, he was beat.

Hayato tumbled down awkwardly, adjusting himself so that he was sitting in the bed next to Haruna. He took the opportunity to roll over, nuzzling his cheek into the outside of Hayato’s thigh. He looked up at his boyfriend and smiled slowly. “We can go over your notes after a nap, right?”

He could _feel_ Hayato stiffen at the idea of the two sharing a bed together, if only for an innocent mid-afternoon nap. His face was already red as he gently pushed Haruna away from him. “Of course. And then we’d need to get a snack. And then we’d need to play some video games to refresh our brains. And by then dinner will be ready. This is just what Jun warned me about.” He smiled softly, tugging on Haruna’s arm to pull him up.

Haruna sighed. It was worth a try. Hayato _had_ dissuaded the others from coming over to help them study. So he supposed he owed him a little bit of effort. Still, it was a nice thought, stretched out in the afternoon sun, with his arms wrapped around Hayato’s waist and his head buried into his neck. It was enough to tempt him to flop right back down again.

“Fine.” Haruna sat up straight on the bed. He reached for his own notebook and opened it up to the nearest blank page. His notes were paltry at best, and even worse after Hayato had offered to let him copy his after class. He wanted to drag this out as long as he possibly could. So the more he had to copy over, the better. Still, it was a lot, he realized as he turned through the notes. Plus a lot of his writings were littered with lyric ideas or music notes. It was hard to decipher, truth be told. He frowned before looking back up at his boyfriend.

“You should at least give me a reward for completing each page,” he teased with a playful smile.

“Yeah? Like what? Mom did offer us some snacks, though we don’t have a lot that’s really to your tastes in the house…”

Haruna brightened up at that, seeing his chance. “We should go to the donut shop before we begin! You can give me a donut every time I finish! Easy!”

Hayato seemed to brighten to the idea, thinking about it for a long moment before realizing Haruna’s plan. “Sorry! I made a promise this time! I can’t let you get out of this easily.” Hayato sat cross-legged in front of him and tapped his notebook. Haruna only sighed. Why was he being so tough all of the sudden? Usually they’d sit around playing video games until dawn before they remembered that they were originally doing homework. Without Jun and Natsuki around, it was so easy to get distracted. But today for some reason…

“I guess that’s fair,” Haruna finally shrugged, looking over Hayato curiously. “What about every time I finish a page, you give me a kiss?”

Hayato dropped his pen and Haruna grinned in victory. His face flushed over again as he stared down at his lap, trying to fight back the smile that was creeping onto his face. Haruna leaned over from his seat and poked his cheek. “What about it, Leader? We got ourselves a deal?”

Hayato turned to check to make sure the door was closed and Haruna chuckled. As if his parents would be monitoring them _that_ closely. It was just a kiss. Or two. Or five or six if Haruna was _really_ ambitious about those notes. And he was definitely feeling a lot more fired up. Especially after Hayato nodded head and looked back at him, eyes determined and sure. “Deal.”

Hayato finished with one last firm nod, furrowing his brow with resolute focus. Haruna had to fight the urge to kiss him right then and there. But no, he made a promise. No matter how cute and strong-willed and downright _kissable_ his boyfriend looked. He made a promise to wait.  

He looked down at the seemingly endless collection of notes and sighed. Time to get to work.

\---

The first page didn’t take nearly as long as he was expecting. He had caught himself dozing off once, but recovered enough to finish the entire page without incident. He let out a long breath of relief, grinning to himself as he fell back onto the bed. It took him an entire minute to remember his reward, shooting up excitedly as he looked over to Hayato.

The other boy was sitting on the floor of the bedroom, and Haruna wasn’t entirely sure when he had even gotten off the bed. He dimly remembered feeling movement, but he had been so focused on trying to make out Hayato’s handwriting, that he thought nothing of it.

Now, he was sitting on the floor, with his guitar slung around his shoulders. He leaned over, writing a quick note before strumming the guitar quietly. He frowned, trying another note before smiling to himself, satisfied with the tone change. He hummed as he wrote it all down.

Haruna wondered if Hayato knew how beautiful he was when he got like this. He had always thought so. Ever since he first saw Hayato play. The passion in his eyes as he worked towards a specific goal sparked something in him that day. Upon seeing him smile and strum his guitar, Haruna had wanted to feel something similar pumping through his veins. He longed for it. Craved it. 

He would have never guessed he’d feel that kind of passion for Hayato himself.

“Ah! I’m sorry! Did I pull you from your studies? You looked so focused that I couldn’t help but feel a little inspired…” He almost looked bashful as he placed his guitar pick down.

Haruna flopped back down, this time on his stomach as he looked down at Hayato, kicking his feet back and forth with his head in his chin. He shook his head and smiled. “Nope! Just finished the first page!” He climbed down from the bed and landed on all fours in front of Hayato, still smiling ear to ear. “You know what that means,” he teased, leaning inwards.

“R-right.” Hayato nodded, adjusting himself so that he was on his knees. He leaned forward as well, pressing his lips gently against Haruna’s with a soft sigh. Haruna wasted no time crawling closer, moving his hand to card through Hayato’s hair. He sat back on his heels when he was close enough, finally pulling back from their gentle kissing to take a long breath. He opened his eyes just in time to watch Hayato’s eyes open as well, their noses bumping as Haruna pressed their foreheads together. He could do this all day. And judging by Hayato’s breathless smile, he wasn’t alone.

He moved his hand down to cup Hayato’s face and intended on seeing if he could get away with a second kiss. Or even a third if he was lucky. But as he shifted, he heard paper crinkle beneath him. Hayato blinked to awareness and Haruna felt brief panic shoot through him as he backed quickly off of whatever he had been kneeling on. “Holy crap! I hope I didn’t ruin anything imp-“

Hayato was already picking up the papers, shaking his head with a small smile. “Nothing was ripped! We’re fine!” He grinned victoriously as he showed the slightly crumbled pages off to Haruna, to assure him that everything was fine. “Ta da! No harm, no foul. But after page two maybe…”

“Right, right. I’ll be more careful,” Haruna laughed. Before he stood up to continue his quest, he took a quick look at the pages. Music bars, with notes littering the page here and there, half-completed. He glanced at the lyrics and tilted his head. “A love song?” He thought for a moment. He wouldn’t. Hayato wouldn’t write a love song for…

Hayato turning bright red was becoming a trend for the day. And Haruna decided it was a trend he quite liked. He immediately retracted the pages and held them to his chest, glancing to his left to examine his bedroom wall intently. “It’s for the whole band, actually!” He laughed nervously, looking back down at the half-written song. “I was thinking that we have a lot of good songs. But I’ve never really written a proper love song, you know? Like some of the older units have. Something cool and appealing and…”

“Sexy?” Haruna smirked at him, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. Hayato leaned forward and slapped his boyfriend on the arm. “I getcha though. Something different than what we already have. Should be pretty cool.”

The boy immediately brightened. “You think so? I’m glad! I’ve always wanted to write something like this but I’ve never…you know…” He laughed. “I’ve never really had a relationship before you. I’ve never been in love before, so I never knew what to write. But I’ve been feeling a lot more inspired lately.”

Hayato smiled so easily, like it was so simple to say. Like his words didn’t leave Haruna feeling dizzy and breathless, floating like there was no floor beneath him at all. It was all he could do to smile in turn, praying his face wasn’t as red as it felt. “I wonder why that could be,” he said, trying to sound teasing but his voice was barely a whisper.

“Haruna…” Hayato started, his eyes soft and affectionate. Haruna couldn’t help but feel himself slipping deeper every time Hayato looked at him like that. He leaned in again, this time careful to avoid any stray pages and notebooks. He reached out to touch Hayato’s face, and the other boy met the hand with his own, entangling their fingers. Hayato’s smile brightened. “Let’s try our hardest, okay? Go get page two done.”

Everything halted and Haruna groaned before the words even caught up with him. He sunk down in defeat. “When did you become so cruel? You’re worse than Jun…” he looked back up at Hayato, sticking out his lip in a pathetic attempt at a pout.

His boyfriend only sighed, clearly biting off a laugh. “I’m not _that_ bad! It’s just…” he paused thoughtfully, picking up his guitar pick. He mindlessly strummed at his guitar. “Summer’s coming soon. And I don’t have to take classes this year. Of course, I’m excited to have more time to take on work with the company, and to work on my song portfolio but…” he stared down at his guitar, trying to summon up the proper words.

“…I wanted to spend the summer with you. Things we can only do when we’re young, ya know?” He smiled a little bit, still not meeting Haruna’s eyes as he said them. “And I guess the big thing is that I want you there beside me the whole time. I don’t want you to be held back again. I don’t want…” He dropped the guitar pick, moving his hand up to wipe at his eyes. “I don’t want you to leave you behind. I want to be side by side with you. Always.”

If Haruna felt breathless before, he was absolutely drowning now.

He reached over for Hayato’s chin, lifting it up. He needed to see his face. He needed to see those feelings that poured so easily and honestly out of him. The drummer leaned in and kissed his forehead, careful to not break the deal they had set up. He thought for a long moment about what he wanted to say, thoughts pouring through his head so quickly he could barely make sense of them.

He wasn’t cut out for school work. He had been working his tail off in club activities just to graduate, and he’d still likely have to take a few classes just to finish things off. He was older than the rest of the band, and he never had any talents worth bragging about. He realized on some level he might be working part time jobs his whole life, if this idol gig didn’t work out for him.

Still, he never felt left behind. He never felt embarrassed. Shiki was always telling him how cool he was. Jun and Natsuki would envy his laidback attitude. And Hayato…

Hayato made every single effort feel worthwhile.

“The drummer’s position is always in the back, right?” Haruna then finally laughed. Hayato only blinked in confusion, trying to figure out what he was getting at. “So I guess I don’t mind being behind you guys. It’s easier to support you that way.” He nodded to himself, realizing exactly how true it was. Somewhere down the line, High x Joker became another precious thing for Haruna to protect. “You don’t ever need to worry about me. I’m always going to be there, whether behind you beside you.”

“That being said,” he continued. “I wouldn’t mind getting some real summertime excitement in with my friends and my boyfriend.” Hayato blushed just at hearing him use the title. Haruna smiled. He was never going to get tired of that. “So I suppose I’ll give it my all.”

He pressed his forehead against Hayato’s again, nudging his nose into his face affectionately. “But even if my dumb ass lands itself back into summer classes, it won’t be all bad. After all, I got myself a _really_ cute tutor this year, right?” He lowered his chin, making their lips brush, just a hair apart.

But as he pressed in for more, he felt a weight against his chest as Hayato pushed him back. “Copy my notes first. Then we’ll talk,” he said with a sly smile. “Or…ahh…I suppose not ‘talk’ but…” he stammered, before finally laughing again, running his fingers through his hair awkwardly.

Haruna sighed. He really was one lucky guy. Sure, forgetting his alarms had been awful. He had worried his mother half to death. And he nearly died trying to get to school in all of his rushing. But now, sitting across from Hayato, smiling at Haruna like he had never done anything wrong in his entire life?

Well maybe it was a mistake he could afford to make again sometime.


End file.
